Sledgehammer’s Call of Duty is “Next-Gen First”

Speaking with IGN, Activision Publishing’s CEO, Eric Hirshberg, confirmed Sledgehammer’s upcoming Call of Duty game is being developed primarily for next-gen platforms. The news came after last week’s earnings call, during which Activision revealed that Sledgehammer was developing 2014’s Call of Duty game.

“Sledgehammer is approaching this as a next-gen-first development,” says Hirshberg. “Obviously in the console-transition year, anyone who developed a cross-generational game last year had to deal with the fact that the technology of the next-gen platforms was still coming into focus and changing quite a bit during the development process…. Now that we have the next-gen hardware out in the marketplace and solid, that is our primary development.”

Details are still scarce on how the title will take advantage of the new platforms, but solving those issues is partly why Activision has brought in Sledgehammer and moved Treyarch and Infinity Ward to three-year development schedules. Hirshberg explains, “On the two-year cycle, with the level of content we were putting in the games, it became a real horse race each and every time to get everything done that we wanted to get done. With next-gen hardware, Hirshberg coninues, “we’ve got more capabilities than ever before to play with and we want to make sure our developers have the time to innovate, iterate, to bring the best creative vision and the most possible polish to each and every game.”

Activision expects Sledgehammer’s Call of Duty to be different from what’s been offered by Infinity Ward and Treyarch. “We give each of our studios a lot of independence,” he says. Seeing the work Sledgehammer did helping Infinity Ward with Modern Warfare 3, Activision’s message to the new studio is “You know what makes this thing great; now go do it your way.” Unfortunately, Activision isn’t quite ready to talk specifically about what Sledgehammer’s Call of Duty will be like, only saying, “the proof will be in the pudding,” adding, “When you see it, hopefully, you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Hirshberg also assures fans worried about the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions that 2014’s Call of Duty “will also be a great current-gen game.” The publisher recognizes 2014 as a continuation of last year’s console transition. “There are still a lot of people playing on current gen,” says Hirshberg “and we want to deliver a great experience for them as well. But it will be a next-gen-first production and the current-gen game will be a version of that.”

Steve Butts is Editor-in-Chief at IGN and is trying to kill Mitch Dyer in the office's Pathfinder campaign. Follow him on Twitter at @SteveButts.